Flash drive read only but in FAT32 format

I use my flash drive to house my itunes library but recently whenever I try to add a song to my itunes (and thus also copying that file to the drive) I get the error message that I don't have the privilege to copy to the drive. I checked to see what format it was and if that was the problem but it's still FAT32, as it always has been. Any insights?

does the flash drive have a hardware lock? some flash drives do. make sure it's not on. also, check that the folder you are trying to copy to is not locked. select that folder in finder and enter command+i. see if the locked box is checked in the popup.

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USB Flash Drive: Read-only filesystem

Hi
I'm trying to format a usb flash drive using various tools but they all say that it's a read-only file system. The drive is not mounted and I'm running as root. If I try to mount the drive like so with the command
sudo mount -o rw,users /dev/sdc1 /media/myflashdrive
I don't get any errors and when I go to /media/myflashdrive I can see and edit all the files (only as root however). However, any changes are not persistent. For example, if I delete any files or run
sudo rm -rf /media/myflashdrive/*
it seems to work and ls doesn't show anything, but then if a reopen the drive, the files are back.
I've tried this on other computers and even in Windows but nothing can put a scratch on it. I heard something about there being a certain bit in the first sector which can be flipped to make a drive read-only but I think it only applied to Windows.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, but if I can't format the drive I'll probably use some thermite to toast the data on it.

Hmm. I wasn't very clear: my drive was usable originally but it stopped working while I was using Windows (I just plugged it in one day and it was read-only) and now that I use Linux I thought I'd try to fix it (I have been told that linux can do anything but I'm not so sure). I suppose it could just be a physical error on the drive but it's not got any marks or anything.
Just a thought here, if it was a physical problem, would it be possible to 'reset' it with an electromagnet or by shorting it out or would this just frazzle the chip? Maybe not the right forums for that kind of question.
Last edited by JJ.Eastwood (2011-05-26 19:50:56)

Why does my Macbook Pro make every flash drive read only?

Anybody else having this problem? I can write to a flash drive once on my Macbook Pro. After I remove it, it becomes read-only, but only on my Macbook (I still have read/write access on other computers). Happens with every flash drive, regardless of brand or size. File systems are all FAT 32.

I'd make a sound too if i was put into a bag haha.
Only thing i could think of it it has a mind of its own or your putting your computer to sleep. Try shutting down your mac before placing in your bag and see if that changes things.

Make flash drive read only with no copying

Here is the Situation. I have a 2h video of a high school play that i am editing and selling but with final cut you can only export 480 p video on dvd so i am going to sell hd digital copies on flash drives my question is can i make it so that the flash drive are read only and copy protected so it can't be distributed can i format the flahs drive insuch a way a way that prevents copying?

jfoppes wrote:
… can i format the flahs drive insuch a way a way that prevents copying?
technicallly, to playback you have to 'copy' content (from stick/disk/whatever to device) ....
So, the harder you make it to 'copy protect' your content, the more inconvenient it gets for your paying customers!
for example, on commercial DVDs I'm 'forced' to watch minutes of promos and 'legal advice', talking to me like I'm a 1st degree suspect No fun! And: When I like to watch/listen on diff. devices. again trouble to 'rip' it (anyone remembering the first slogan for iTunes? "Rip.Mix.Burn." Holy innocence ........... LOL
Forget the few copy-cats. Convince by quality (e.g. spelling ) .
Deliver an excellent product, perhaps bundled with some 'extras' (a nice designed box, with pics/t-shirt/memorabilia/…) And, hey - who copies a school-play????

ExFat Flash Drive Read Only

I let a friend borrow my 64G Flash Drive and he returned it with a bunch of unwanted files. At first I tried deleting them but all I got was a dull "beep" so I figured I'd just erase the whole thing and reformat. Opened disk utility and it was recognized but the options to erase are greyed out. Looked at the drive's info and it says "Read Only".
I have Paragon's NTSF driver installed thinking that would cure the erase problem but that did nothing. I know no one with a Windows machine so I can't ask someone else to reformat the drive for me.
How do I get the Flash Drive out of read only, erase and reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?

I don't know anyone who uses Windows and took it to a Coffee House to ask if someone there would reformat it for me. Most of the time I got a 'no' fearing it may harm their systems (???) and those willing to had no idea how to perform a reformat. I figured it couldn't be that difficult on a Windows machine, there must be a disk utility somewhere on the system, but they wouldn't let me look or even try.
I did contact the manufacturer and was told the drive should work under OS X but they have never tested it and would not allow me to return it because the purchase date was beyond the 60-day warranty. I did tell them that I would alert the Mac community about the problem and suggest Mac users avoid PNY flash drives or other drives.
Because it was a 64G flash drive I paid a handsome price for it from Staples. I returned it to Staples and asked for my money back but again, according to my receipt, it was beyond their warranty period. Of course, they took me to the locked flash drive cabinet and suggested I purchase another brand but I was ticked and promised I would not buy another item from them.
I've asked the (former) friend who borrowed it to replace it with a different brand and mailed it to him because it contains all of his files. He has not responded thus far and I doubt that he ever will. Its too bad. I'll never loan another Flash Drive to anyone again, good friend or not.

Usb flash drive read only problem [solved]

Hi, im using spacefm, i have udevil and udisks2 installed, i can read my USB flash drive but i cannot delete files, i tried gparted that use spacefm as well and i can delete files from the usb flash drive with no problems, any ideas?
i solved i installed ntfs-3g and i can delete files again
thanks
Last edited by adcdam (2013-04-08 01:01:22)

I installed it and got this error : now my Macbook wont even see the flash drive...

USB flash drive 'Read only' problem

Hi everyone,
I have a Trescend USB flash drive 16 Gb, and when I plug it into my desktop (using windows 7 64 bits) I'm able to write or read any file I want. When I plug it into my mid-2010 MacBook Pro 15' w/ lastest version of OS X Lion, the permission are 'Read Only' and I can't seem to be able to change the permission.
How am I suppose to change permission on my Macbook ?
Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
François

I installed it and got this error : now my Macbook wont even see the flash drive...

USB FAT32 is read only and will not format

My usb is formated as FAT32. however it is read only, and will not format. here are some screen shots:
http://gyazo.com/369a6b843d86ba0bcbd360ed89ea258c
http://gyazo.com/f07905c5b27519cbefbab29719c88702
http://gyazo.com/40d291c83b85e88c68ccc47a45b19f35
http://gyazo.com/490462fb7b280be7483048b2e485b2b8
not really sure what is wrong with it, any one have any suggestions?
i mean it cant be trash now, there has to be some program that will fix it.

Drive Partition and Format
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

FAT-32 USB Drive Read-Only

Hi there,
Suddenly my USB drive became read-only. Please help.
I am able to read the files from the USB-Drive but not write to it.
You can se from the above that the drive is in MS-DOS (FAT32) format and I can only read.
I tried formating the drive, creating partition etc among man other using Disk Utility but nothing is working.
Please help.
Thanks,
Jayesh

Can't erase it either, same error as the partition one. Changing port didn't work too.

HP Pavilion DV7 2206TX - DVD drive reads DVDs but not CD's

My HP Pavilion DV7 2206TX - DVD drive reads DVDs but not CD's.
When I insert a CD, the drive tries very hard to read the CD but gives up after about a minute.
I get no error message. I do not see the Auto play message.
Windows Explorer does not recognize the DVD drive.
When I insert a DVD, I get the Autoplay menu, Windows Explorer recognize the drive and the DVD. I can play the DVD using any number of Video players.
I would welcome advice relating this problem.

your HP Pavilion needs a new DVD driver. I ran into many problems such as this when troubleshooting computers in school.
A DVD drive should play CD at any time: While a CD driver will not play a DVD disc. Do not think there is a problem with sofware because it will only throw your troubleshooting skills out the window and it will confuse you.

I cant able to copy my files from my macbook to external hard disk,its showing "read-only",but i can able to transfer files in windows os,why cant i able to do tht in here?

i cant able to copy my files from my macbook to external hard disk,its showing "read-only",but i can able to transfer files in windows os,why cant i able to do tht in here?

to frederic1943
Its in NTFS Format...and i hav downloaded the file NTFS-3G,but still i dont know wht to do with that.will u pls help me here.

AP Banks menu is excluded and used Bank read only but Accounts is greyed ou

Hi,
We have a audit requirement to restrict a responsibility from Banks acess. So removed the Bank Setup Menu and created a Banks Read Only fucntion and assigned it to the responsibility
Now I can see Banks as read only but the Bank Account button is greyed out.
Please let me know if we can make it to work
Thanks,
User 12048986

I had to include all the Bank functions in the menu and then also include the read only bank accounts. Now we can exclude the bank fucntions from responsibility

Dvd Drive Reads Dvd but not burning Dvd

Product Name:HP Pavilion 15 Notebook PC
Operating System: Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
Optical DriveVD-RAM UJ8DB
problem: Dvd drive reads Dvd but fails to burn Dvd.I can hear a noise from Dvd drive when i insert a blank Dvd to burn.
Noise keeps running until i remove Dvd from Dvd drive. please help

Help us to help you by posting the following information.
1. The complete Model Name. or Product Number. of the notebook - see This HP web document if you don't how to locate the model number and\or product number.
2. The complete version and name of the operating system you are using ( ie Windows 7 64bit ).
3. Is your notebook still covered under warranty? Check your warranty status Here.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

Why is external hard drive read-only on one Mac, but read/write on another?

I have a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive. I bought it to be compatible with both Windows and Mac, which it currently is. It works just fine on my PC and my MacBook. However, recently, I bought a MacBook Pro. The Seagate drive shows up as read only on the MacBook Pro, though it is read/write on my MacBook. It's formatted NTFS, yes, but it already works on my MacBook. What's going on here?

Nope, one of the selling points of the drive was that it came ready to work with both Mac and Windows (the product description says there is an NTFS drive installed for use on Mac). No hacking or installing on my part.
But I think I figured it out. Apparentely, Mavericks comes installed with something that does not allow it to write NTFS no matter what (well, unless you go through a whole bunch of technical stuff to rewrite the software). My old MacBook was Leopard.
I'll just reformat the external hard drive for Mac, and if I ever need to use it on a Windows, I'll install HFS+ Explorer on the Windows. Oh well.

External hard drive read-only?

Just got a Macbook Pro last week and I have found that my external drive is read-only, where it used to work perfectly on my old Windows laptop.
I can assume that the drive is formatted as NTFS from reading other posts, and that I must format it as FAT32 (I believe), but in the Disc Utility I do not see this option.
Can someone aid with this slight problem? I seem to be heading in the right direction as I'm not too keen on using third-party applications to enable writing.
Additionally, sometimes the drive will not connect (light stays red) but I assume that this is possibly related to the formatting issue at hand. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance

It is FAT32. For some reason, OS X refers to it just as "FAT".
As AussieDJ indicated, you can use NTFS 3G. This allows your Mac to write to NTFS formatted drives. I personally have used this for quite a while and have never had issues. I have seen some posts from people saying it can be problematic. As I have never had a problem, I can't say specifically what issues might arise. Apple does offer it directly on their download pages:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/ntfs3g.html

Flash drive read only but in FAT32 format

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